File spoon-archives/foucault.archive/foucault_2002/foucault.0211, message 17


From: "Conlon, Ryan" <r.conlon-AT-lancaster.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: social construction & realism
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002 12:11:42 -0000


Dear Will

Some critical realists engage with Foucault.  See in particular Richard
Marsden's The Nature of Capital: Marx after Foucault, London, Routledge, 1999.
Essentially, he argues that Foucault can be read as a realist, and as a
supplement to Marx.

There was also a paper presented at the 1999 Critical Realist conference on
Foucault and realism.  Can't remember who it was, but think it was by a
postgraduate student.

Bob Jessop, a neo-Marxist state theorist, whose philosophical position is
critical realist, also engages with Foucault (alongside Poulantzas), in his
book State Theory: Putting the Capitalist State in its Place, Cambridge,
Polity, 1990.

But away from Foucault specifically, critical realists do hold onto an
ontological realism but have a social constructivist view of epistemology.  See
Andrew Sayer (2000) Realism and Social Science, London: Sage.  Sayer adopts a
'moderate constructivism', and distinguishes between 'construction' and
'construal'.

Best
Ryan

-----Original Message-----
From: Will Napier [mailto:will-AT-thinkingsuccess.com]
Sent: 09 November 2002 15:45
To: foucault-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Subject: social construction & realism


Hi this is my first post to this list - only just begun to read Foucault (so
far Clinic, Madness, half of Order).

Is it possible to have a social constructionist view of epistemology and yet
hold to an ontological realism? Conceptually I guess it is, but does anyone?

Will Napier


   

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